Short story writing

This book is an attempt to put into definite form the principles observed by the masters of the short story in the practice of their art. It is the result of a careful study of...

(_b_) The _Story with a Moral_ attempts to sugar-coat its sermon with a little narrative. It sticks rather closely to facts, and has a slight plot, which shows, or is made to sh...

"The true method for the making of a plot is the development of what may be called a plot-germ. Take two or three characters, strongly individualized morally and mentally, place...

In general a phrase, otherwise indefinite, becomes specific when united with the name of a character, as in Hawthorne's "Howe's Masquerade" and "Lady Eleanor's Mantle;" but such...

The facts upon which Hawthorne built "The Ambitious Guest" are these:--The White Hills of which he speaks (¶ 1) are the famous White Mountains of New Hampshire; the Notch (¶ 1)...

Conversation like the following is commonly termed "bookish"; it is painfully correct and laboriously profound--but it is not natural. If it were meant for a burlesque upon poli...

The use of narration within narration is more objectionable. It is of little importance who tells the story, or how it came to be told; the less the narrator appears the better....

The correct short story possesses unity of form as well as unity of plot. In the novel there may be wide gaps of time and scene between adjacent chapters; but the short story al...

18 "When I think of your death, Esther, I think of mine too. But I was wishing we had a good farm ... round the White Mountains, but not where they could tumble on our heads.......

Grace's sisters had come home to take charge of affairs for the day and evening so Grace did not have much to see after but herself. Fred, supposing he would rather be in the wa...

It is a great aid to the attainment of a good style thoroughly to understand your own mind before you put pen to paper. It may seem odd that you should be ignorant of your own i...

Of a more ephemeral type are the stories whose timeliness depends upon their coinciding with the current fashion in short stories. For there are fashions in literature just as s...

36. Then the old woman, with an air of mystery which drew the circle closer round the fire, informed them that she had provided her grave-clothes some years before--a nice linen...